PLANT THESE PLUG TRANSPLANTS IN RECORD TIME:Watch how to plant these evergreen plug transplants faster and with less effort than any "bare root" evergreen transplant of a similar size. With just a cordless drill and our plug transplant bulb auger, you can realistically plant 50 to 100 trees per hour without breaking your back. You can buy this auger on the cheap with tree purchase, but with any order of 50 plug transplants or more [pls read that again, this offer is not for plug seedlings] we'll include the auger for FREE!

What is an evergreen tree plug transplant?

Plug transplants begin as 1-2 year old plug seedlings which are extracted from foam styroblock trays and transplanted into much larger trays, then grown at our nursery for at least one full season, putting on robust growth both above and below ground. The volume of the "root plug" of a plug seedling is approx 4 cubic inches, whereas the root plug of a plug transplant is approx 30 inches, meaning the root system is nearly 10 times larger. Plug transplants are therefore significantly huskier and larger than plug seedlings both above and below ground, have a higher survival rate, experience less stress during harvesting, shipping and replanting than bareroot trees, and can be planted at almost any time of year. In most situations, fall-planted plugs already have good root development before spring bud break and put on more growth before the heat of the following summer sets in. They tend to reach a more mature height at an earlier age, and their well developed and undisturbed root systems make them somewhat more resistant to unseasonably dry periods in the Spring. Our plug transplant sizes range between 10 to 30 inches, depending on species [height does not include the root plug]. Please refer to the exact sizing info available on each tree's specific page.

Why are plug transplants so much more expensive than the other sizes?

Because they're harder to grow...they must be planted by hand from a more expensive "starter" seedling, the soil must be purchased and conditioned to meet specific criteria, and they have a higher loss rate during the growing season. In general plug transplants require more work than any other method of growing evergreens. But they have some key advantages, such as:

Winter shipments: Plug transplants can be shipped from our site in MI at nearly any time of year, such as before the ground has thawed, which is impossible with "bare root" trees. We can bring trays of plug transplants indoors to thaw for shipment to weddings, corporate events or to southern states...pretty much whenever you like. But thawing and extracting during the winter months is a lot of extra work.

Late Spring/Summer shipments: Plug transplants can be shipped long after they have broken bud or have begun candling [a time when bare root evergreens would die if dug and shipped]. At this time of year we generally pack them with their tender new top growth exposed to the open air inside the box, thus only temporarily interrupting their daily diet of sunlight, and allowing them to pull moisture from their root plug and transpire it into the open air to keep cool. We also punch holes in the box to allow fresh air to enter the box, keeping the humidity inside the box low enough that the trees can transpire water through their needles to keep cool. They actually keep growing during transit and keep their vitality much longer in the box than bare root evergreens. This means plug transplants can safely be shipped and planted even in June and July, long after the traditional bare root season is done, because they are actually already planted when you open the box!

Undisturbed root systems: Plug transplants by their very nature are shipped with their root systems almost perfectly undisturbed and undamaged, unlike traditional bare root, because they literally pop out of the trays with virtually no stress or damage to the root system. Because of this undisturbed root system, they experience far less "transplant shock" during extraction/sorting/packing/shipping than bare root transplants, which allows plug transplants to put on more growth than bare root in the same amount of time. However, this factory-style growing method means that the trees must be cared for on a daily basis, with most of that extra work being nearly daily irrigation.

Having said all of that, our bare root transplants are often quite a bit bigger than our plug transplants, and there is a long tradition in the nursery industry of growing and planting bare root transplants. But we're not satisfied with doing things the way they've always been done.